


volo non fugia

by rinasova



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Peter, Canon-Typical Violence, College Student Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Financial Issues, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lack of Communication, Loss of Powers, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Angst, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Police, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 14:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20244181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinasova/pseuds/rinasova
Summary: in which Peter is 20 years old university student, who also tries to find a job and be Spider-Man at the same time. It's not easy.Ah, and yes, he attends a fight club every night, is losing his powers and so it happens, Tony stark is actually his father.





	volo non fugia

**Author's Note:**

> in Latin the title means **"I fly but do not flee"**
> 
> ° the title of the first chapter translates **"to live is to fight"**   
____________________________________________  
**Hope you enjoy:)**

The day was endless, stuck as an old vinyl under a needle, scratchy and rough, boring. 

One. Two. Three. The raindrops slid down on the smooth surface without any sound or resistance, cold and infinite, picking random spots to finish their flight. Peter didn't notice himself counting them, his gaze following each down, until they disappeared from the windowsill. The rain was quiet but persistent, for hours blessing New York with puddles and umbrellas. 

His thoughts felt sluggish, sleepily content to just roll around without much force, not trying to make him feel something, not trying to get him back in the infinite circle of finding the problems and doing his best to solve them while also creating new ones. 

Peter felt well aware of everything around him, from the clock at the wall counting down every second with almost inaudible ticks, to the loud and hasteless voice of the professor, slowly getting through all of his notes for today, and even the quiet mumbling in the back rows. And yet he felt undisturbed and centered, calm in the ways, he rarely got to feel these days. It almost made him feel safe, protected without being wary, as if even the blast of fire of the explosion right to the face couldn't really harm him, because something was keeping an eye on him, orchestrating the events. The blast of fire; Peter shuddered at the thought, elusive distant feeling, like all of his eyelashes disappearing in a second, the taste of smoke right to his lungs —  _ no _ , Peter thought, as his heart rate picked up the pace, enough to make his muscles rigid and tense. No, he was not going to think about that. He  _ wasn't _ . 

Curt shake of the head, forced deep breath, he made himself return to the present and squinted at too bright lights, quietly buzzing right at the edge of his hearing.

The lecture hall was packed full, the air was stuffy and dense, and way too hot, furthermore mixing so many smells. Peter didn't allow himself to follow any of them, knowing what kind of headache that would give him. Only then he remembered why he had always skipped those lectures.

Well. 

His eyes then focused on the face of the clock, following the jerky movement of the second hand, inevitably pushing the end for the day, release from his unwilling torture chamber. 

Come on. 

Just few more minutes. 

When the bell ringed, it jarred his spider-sense even if he was expecting it, his temples sparked with the promise of an exhausting headache. The lecture hall transformed in a second becoming loud and hectic beehive, Peter stayed behind, not eager to interact with rushing crowd and for a moment he just sat there, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. It was the kind of noise that was quite hard to distance himself from. 

The student rushed around him, clueless and joyful, speaking of so many things — too many to even try and understand. Backpacks zipping, the flutter of the closed notebooks and the laptops being shoved in the bags, the creaking of the benches, uneven rhythm of footsteps. Peter stayed in the center of this madness, desperately clinging to the boredom of the previous hour to not allow himself get overwhelmed. 

The day was over, it was all that mattered. 

And then there was this sensation which darted at him without warning, that familiar nagging feeling at the back of his head, consumed his focus, allowed his shoulder to get tense, his muscles ready for a jump. He squeezed his eyes, overwhelmed, trying to get a hold of himself, to clump down on this inkling. His mind was panicking, the thoughts and instincts crushing together, leaving only one bare realization standing still. So close, so important…

Almost at the tips of his fingers...

And gone. 

He let out frustrated sigh, the second time he had come across that weird short circuit of his systems and yet stayed absolutely clueless to what it had been about. 

When he opened his eyes, the class was already empty, quiet except for distant ramble of crowded hallways. 

His phone rumbled in his backpack, startling him. Peter reached for it, feeling his heartbeat still drum insistently on the inside of his temples. The bright screen blinked at him with one unread message.

**Tony: ** _ The weather sucks, doesn't it, Spidey? Good thing my suit has some good heaters. And is water resistant. Just saying.  _

Peter rolled his eyes, quickly hiding the phone in his pocket, as if Tony could see his reaction. He probably could, if he really wanted to, bit that would be breaking so many laws. Peter shook himself from the train of hurried and resilient thoughts and finally got up to leave the class. 

Outside the thunder roared. 

*

Peter started his patrol as he often did on the roof of the 75th Precinct, guided by simple reasons. Well, for one it made his job easier. He let himself be hidden by the curve of the structure, obscured from the view of pedestrians, listening closely to murmuring of the dispatchers. He knew that particular police department had discovered him as their visitor a long time ago, but they never expressed their opinion on the matter so he assumed it was okay. 

The wall was cold and damp behind his shoulder blades as he pressed himself closer. The wait was endless. 

It was routine, his days were predictable to the last minute: a purse snatched somewhere in this neighborhood, drug dealer closer to Times Square, assault, disturbance behind the bar and if the day promised to be bad enough, even the gunfire somewhere around abandoned warehouses. 

Boring. He gritted his teeth, didn't allow himself to lose focus. His thoughts, left without stern grip, wandered off toward the promise of the warmth that the Stark's suit could provide. It was so tempting and so easy to reach, Peter felt himself aching from inside out. No, he though, gripping the slippery surface of old bricks.  _ No,  _ trusting Tony was a bad idea. Always. He  _ knew  _ that, because. 

Blast,  _ the air so hot, it burns the oxygen on the way to his lungs, and all of his damn lashed are gone, gone, gone.  _ **No. ** How could he trust a walking fire hazard? 

The cold water soaked through spandex, pooling on his shoulders, all along his back and around his feet. He felt the mask get wet as well, his hair clinging to his forehead. 

The rain didn't stop or halter, and with every raindrop hitting him, Peter felt the bitter hot anger collecting in his stomach, his muscles contracting as if urging him to move, to do something about it,  _ stop being so passive _ . But he held still, listened. 

It was okay. He only had to wait a few more hours.  _ It was okay.  _

By the midnight, he found himself in Bronx, his body tired and his webshooters empty. 

New York buzzed around him as wide awake as ever, and every window sparked with warm lights. People on the streets were loud and friendly, they didn't mind the drizzle, too drunk to even notice. 

Well, it was Friday. 

Peter walked home slowly, trying to avoid puddles, his suit securely hidden in his backpack. The air smelt of drenched concrete and cold autumn days. He breathed in deep, allowed himself to relax for a second. The anticipation made him giddy, full of energy and expectation, it almost made him grin like a madman. He picked up his pace. 

It was if the day before that moment didn't even happen, was not real, like previous six hours were just a few minutes of distasteful conversation, where he zoned out and didn't care to apologize. 

His day was fine. As always.  _ Boring.  _

But the real fun was just about to begin. 

*

So many smells surround him, enough to make him dizzy. They leave a bittersweet aftertaste at the roof of his mouth. It lingers. 

Soaked asphalt, some leftover thickness of the rain in the tightly packed alleyway. Beer. Sweat. And the ringing sheer metallic vow of blood. 

_ Blood,  _ everywhere. It colors his surroundings bright red and sparkly, dimming the already weak streetlights. It fills faces of the others and his own eyes, clouded by the bleeding broken brow. It nestles in his mouth as a toll of his aching broken nose and bruised tender lips. Peter breathes it in, swallows the taste. 

His lips are bowing in a crooked smile, the crowd around cheering at his strike, he doesn't even notice the tingle of their movement. Adrenaline surging through him deems it not important enough. 

A blow coming right at his ear, his muscles contract, his feet take a step to the left as he blocks the sheer power of it with his forearms, feeling the sensitive skin get painted with the bright red of his opponent's knuckles. 

The time expands, layers his perception, he sees the beads of sweat on a face of a complete stranger in front of him. He sees the pulse tugging at the translucent skin of his neck. The cold autumn wind moves through the silent brick walls, smashing into his throbbing face, gently tugging at his hair, damp with sweat. 

It feels good. 

So many faces, too many hands, cold and intrusive, supporting him, pushing, sending him back into the ring; their clothes get splattered with someone's blood, their eyes shine with the bloodlust. Peter hears each one of them breathing, how their vocal cords vibrate as they yell for him to fight better. 

He hears their hearts wildly beating. He hears his own, behind the bruised ribs and hurriedly expanding lungs. 

The fight continues, his rival — next one in the line. 

Peter smirks at a new man before him, spitting the blood that has collected on his tongue. He checks his teeth with a tip of it, making sure they all are in place. 

The man smirks back. 

"Kid, you might want to step back. You're looking a tad  _ abused _ " he growls, tugging his sweater off. 

In the comforting darkness of the alley, Peter can barely make out the features of his face. He doesn't care enough to try harder, to put the voice in the neat line of his memory frame. Another no one, his issue with anger apparent on the dishonest face. His stance swaying with the rhythm of alcohol. Not a challenge whatsoever. 

"Then make me, old man" Peter says, mostly to make him angry. 

The first punch lands on his stomach, he allows it, ignoring the intense insistence of all his senses. He breathes out the spark of pain, steps back to regain his footing, the sneakers skid on the wet pavement. 

And blood throbes in his body, jolting as it explodes in his temples and continues an overwhelming wave down to his raw knuckles. 

The never ending drum of so many crazy hearts around him, it settles deep on his eardrums, flows in a distant strange echo of his own heartbeat. 

When another punch comes, Peter doesn't hold back this time, allows his body a trained familiar response. This feeling envelops him, makes him feels as a spectator in his own body. The nose crunches under his fist. Then the jaw, the warm blood on his fingers. Ribs, his aching knuckles vibrating with the power of it like the strings on the violin. The man falls down, coughing. He won't come up again, they never do, Peter has learnt. 

And it's no fun to finish them the first try, he learns it too. 

*

The doorkeeper as a rule did not like him or his late nights because he interrupted some old TV show playing in the background and, more importantly, made their neighborhood look tacky, she said. Peter tried to stay out of her way, not really pleased with how her sunken blank eyes suddenly had turned suspicious the first time that she had noticed his bloody face. 

Not always that she was up to see him quietly come home, disheveled and hiding under the giant hood of his jacket. Sometimes he would hear her snoring at her table, the cup of coffee long forgotten beside the tiny television. Those nights he counted his blessings. 

That day he wasn't lucky enough, stumbling inside just as she was walking to her usual place with a boiling hot cup of cheap instant coffee. He expected her to stop him for another round of questions as she sometimes felt she was ought to do, but she didn't even pay him a curt glance, instead settling down on a creaking chair. 

She was a weird woman, old enough to have all her hair be a shade of angry new york's sky in winter and her face littered with too many wrinkles to count. She smelled like an old lady too, which Peter felt unsettled to even label a smell like that, but she did. Like dusty shelves and moldy basement. She wore weird clothes and he had never seen her in anything else aside from blue rubber slippers and giant socks, not even in the middle of the heatwave of the summer. 

He didn't know her name and didn't care enough to ask, didn't know how to. The kids called her 'Mrs. Nosey', which Peter could agree upon. She creeped him out, the way she looked at him, every time he would quickly walk to his door. 

That time she only sighed as he wished her goodnight, keeping his eyes firmly on the floor. His injuries would be healed in the timespan that was suspiciously fast, and he didn't want to give her another reason to call him hoodlum and make assumptions. 

"You know, Mr. Parker, if you are in need of help you just ask" she calmly said when he was far enough not to see the expression on her face, her voice scratchy with tiredness. 

Peter froze caught off guard, then slowly turned but she was looking at her TV, he shrugged. 

"I'm okay. Good night". 

He opened the windows the first thing after quietly sneaking through the sleeping silent hallways of his apartment building. 

Peter counted the bills after getting out of the shower, meeting three in the morning with a cold pizza and unfinished chemistry assignment. 

Two hundred and fifteen. Not bad at all. 

His body ached, evidently unpleased with too much reliance that he had placed upon his super healing. He popped a handful of aspirin, washing it away with an overly sweet energy drink. His hands shook with exhaustion, his eyes protested against the rigid light of the lamp, but he jerked his head and made himself concentrate. Just because he was having fun didn't mean he was about to blow his higher education. Aunt May would not like that. 

The time trickled by. He heard New York wake up outside with the loud honking. His headache was becoming unbearable. 

Peter got up, his knees wobbling under his weight, as he took another couple of bitter aspirin, washing them down with cold tap water. He stood there for a second, bracing his body with tired arms around the sink. It was so quiet, inside the building, interrupted only by sporadic rush of water inside the pipes. Too quiet. 

He frowned, slowly turning to the corner where his mattress was nestled against the wall. His tired eyes found the calendar hanging above it. 

Outside the sunrise bruised the clouds with blues and reds, the sun slowly crawling up. The Saturday just started. 

Peter groaned as the realization hit his exhausted mind. It was Saturday. The week had ended. And the only item on his schedule for today was lunch with Aunt May. The wasted effort of precious hours forgotten on the table in the mess of books and notes, and a glaring laptop. 

He fell right down, face first into the pillow not bothering with his clothes. 

He was asleep in a second. Another blessing. 

*

There was a simple reason why they loved that bakery. Ben had discovered it on Peter's eleventh birthday, and since then they became visitors on a any day that deserved a celebration. 

On another rainy and grumpy day, the place greeted him with the smell of fresh pastries and Aunt May's sweet perfume. He spotted her at once, she had chosen a table in a corner away from cold winds, bushing on the windows, and in the yellow and warm surrounding she looked like she was in the perfectly fitted place for her. 

She saw Peter too and rose from her chair, leaving a hefty looking book on the table. 

"Peter" she said, smiling, and reached her arms towards him. 

Peter accepted the hug, hiding the wince in her tiny shoulder as his still bruised ribs send a jolt of pain through his spine, right to the tip of his head. He didn't show it, didn't allow it to stop him from hugging his aunt just as tightly. 

When they sat down, smiling at each other, aunt May would not stop looking at him with that kind yet piercing gaze of hers. For a second he got worried that somehow she still could see the evidence of the previous night, that his healing factor, too exhausted with not enough sleep and not enough nutrition, had failed to conceal the rough violet edges around his eyes and on his lip. 

But after a minute of silence, she just extended her gentle warm hand and brushed the hair out of his eyes. He smiled; it indeed had grown quite a lot. 

"I'm so glad to see you, darling. How have you been?" she said, as waiter approached them. 

They ordered two cups of tea and some cherry tart as they always did. 

"I'm okay. Good."he said, returning the smile. 

She nodded, thoughtful; the wrinkles around her eyes became so prominent, it was impossible to miss them. Or maybe it was because he didn't spend his evenings in her living room anymore. 

"I haven't seen you on the news recently". 

Their tea arrived with the tang of dried berries. Peter smiled at her crookedly, putting two spoons of sugar as she had always liked to have her tea. 

"Yeah. I'm…trying to stay out of trouble" Aunt May looked at him, her eyes getting just a tiny glimpse wider, a little bit happier as true pride always seemed to transform her face. 

She was a kind woman and loved him so much. Sometimes Peter felt as a fraud, taming such pure heart as his own. 

"You are a good kid, Petrer, I hope you know it" she told him, quietly, gently brushing his hand along the crook of his shoulder. He allowed the touch because it didn't hurt. 

"Still...I hope you know that you don't have to pressure yourself. You don't have to push yourself to the limits. I know adult life is tough and mostly hungry, and managing your studies and the internship at that fancy lab of yours, and on top of that to skip sleep just to make sure New York gets to sleep safe. Peter…"she squeezed his shoulder at that, her eyes took the same look as the day Ben died when she had to become a stable rock for him to lean on. Peter couldn't look in her eyes, ashamed. 

The lie didn't taste sour, it didn't taste like anything at all. 

"I know you won't admit to it, but if it gets too much, please know that you can call me anytime about anything. And if your rent is…".

"No, Aunt May, no, it's…fine. It's really fine". The tea had burnt his tongue in his hurry. "Really I'm fine, I'm good actually. Stark Industries really love their interns, so I'm doing good". He then reached in his pocket, taking out the slim white envelope. He gave it her. "It's not much, but…".

Then there were real tears in her honest and loving eyes. She hugged him tightly, more even than before, whispering about how proud she was. 

When feelings passed, she sat there, wiping at her red stained eyes, looking content and happy, dessert forgotten on the table. 

"Look at you, dear. Don't you dare forget me, when you finally put that brain to good use and make yourself a fortune.Who knows, you can become just like Stark himself, huh?". 

At that Peter could not stop a rippling chuckle, ripping through his ribcage at the thought and prospect. May joined him in her laugh for different reason of course, but it was alright.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that" he said. 

  
  
  



End file.
